Dino Tracks

September 1, 2013
Donald gets the paleontology right in this introduction to fossilized tracks and trackways but crams it into verse that is, to put it mildly, dreadful. "Down by the river and in the rock-- / what are these marks I see? / In some you can lie and curl up inside, / and some have toes of three." Quality of the poetry aside, Donald nonetheless begins by accurately explaining how prehistoric footprints were made and then discovered. She expands on the topic with a tour of dino environments, from tropical river banks to polar snows--noting along the way the distinctive sorts of marks left by single passersby and by herds; by adults and juveniles; by feet and, much more rarely, tails and even wings. Along with occasional visual segues from ancient times to modern, Morrison supplies winningly melodramatic close-up views of toothy predators and well-armored herbivores displaying colorfully patterned skin, scales or feathers. Closing notes (in prose, thankfully) and quizzes provide reinforcement and additional background. Passable art and content, but the narrative presentation couldn't be worse. (map) (Informational picture book. 7-9)

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November 1, 2013

Gr 2-4-Donald examines fossilized footprints and attempts to put them in perspective for a younger crowd. She does this through rhymed stanzas that are often forced and campy. Helpful facts and explanations are buried within the text. The dinosaurs are colorful and even feathered, yet the text references fictional Jurassic Park, "where dinos come to life?/The raptors shown there are certain to scare, /with claws sharp as a knife," then refers to their claws as "tappity." Kurtz uses a similar jumpy rhyme to explore marine life. While Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm's Ocean Sunlight (Scholastic, 2012) and Erich Hoyt's Weird Sea Creatures (Firefly, 2013) use both photographs and illustrations to illuminate the bizarre world deep below the surface, Kurtz's book feels dark and murky. Further, much of the illustration is lost in the gutter; most notably, an anglerfish is reduced to tail, lure, and gaping maw. This book touches on some fantastic topics like whale fall, marine snow, bioluminescence, and bacterial involvement at many depths, but it never gives facts with any complexity. The back matter attempts to fill in the holes left in the spare rhymed texts, but it is too small and verbose for early science readers.-Leila Sterman, Montana State University Library, Bozeman

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